Cesar Chavez Day is a state holiday in
California – one of eight states to recognize the date, and one of the few holidays in the nation
dedicated to a labor
leader. Sacramento and dozens of cities, counties and labor
federations will celebrate the life of Cesar Chavez on March 31, 2012,

On
March 26, U.S. Secretary of Labor Hilda Solis honored Cesar Chavez and the UFW
founders by dedicating the auditorium at the Department of Labor in Chavez’s
name.

Mexican
labor leader Jose Humberto Montes de Oca of the SME, electrical workers union
will lead the Sacramento march on
March 31. Montes do Oca and the SME in Mexico are fighting for survival
against a repressive government. In central Mexico 44,000 Electrical Power Workers (SME) were
fired to privatize the industry and destroy the union.

This
year, 2012 is the 50th. anniversary of the founding of the
U.F.W. The Cesar Chavez
celebrations focus on the struggle
for union rights and justice in the fields of California. Along with Dolores Huerta, Philip Vera
Cruz, and others, César created the United Farm Workers (UFW) the first successful union of
farm workers in U.S. history. There had been more than ten prior
attempts to build a farm workers union.

Each of the prior attempts to organize farm worker unions were destroyed
by racism and corporate power. Chávez chose to build a union that incorporated
the strategies of social movements and community organizing and allied itself with the churches, students, and organized labor. The successful creation of the UFW
changed the nature of labor organizing
in the Southwest and
contributed significantly to the birth of Latino politics in the U.S.

Tuesday, March 27, 2012

Monday, March 26, 2012

Well. The Sacramento Bee certainly found a conservative
voice for the attack on the proposed tax measures to be faced by voters in fall 2012.Lets look at the distractions Ben Boychuk throws up and the issues he chose to not
discuss in his piece in the Sacramento Bee for March 22,2012.

First,in arguing that “Progressives are deluding
themselves” he describes Governor Brown and SEIU as moderates,
then he labels the California Federation of Teachers as“ far left”.The reason for this name calling approach to argumentation? To criticize the compromise tax
proposals worked out by Governor Brown, the various unions and the California
Federation of Teacherslast week.

Boychuk goes on to make the argument that the very wealthy
should not be taxed moreand to
claim that those who argue for more taxes are “ far left”.This is a ploy.

If you are standing as far right as the Boychuk’s employer
the Manhattan Institute then
almost everyone appears to be on the far left. See the conservative Manhattan Institute web page at www.city-journal.org Under the label “make the rich pay” Boychukaccuratelycalculateshow
much the wealthy currently pay, but he does tell you that the wealth pay less
as a percentage of the income on taxes than do all the rest of us- the
90%.

A report of the California Budget Project notes that “measured as a
share of family income”, California’s lowest-income families pay the most in
taxes. The bottom fifth of the state’s families, with an average income of $12,600,
spent 11.1 percent of their income on state and local taxes. In
comparison, the wealthiest 1 percent, with an average income of $2.3 million,
spent 7.8 percent of their income on state and local taxes.”

Wednesday, March 21, 2012

Mitt Romney has pledged to push
back against teachers unions as president.

The former Massachusetts governor said on "Fox News
Sunday," "But the role I see that
ought to remain in the president's agenda with regards to education is to push
back against the federal teachers unions." He continued, "Those
federal teachers unions have too much power, in some cases, they overwhelm the
states, they overwhelm the local school districts. We have got to put the kids
first and put these teachers unions behind."

Romney said he would not
"necessarily" eliminate the Department of Education, but said that it
may combined with agencies and that its "reach" into the states has
to be "pulled back."

Romney also criticized teachers
unions in the context of the No Child Left Behind Act. "I support the
principle of having states test their kids ... I did support No Child Left
Behind and do support continuing to test our kids," he said. "I want
to know which school districts are succeeding and which ones are failing and
where they are failing. I want there to be action taken to get the teacher
unions out and to get the kids once again receiving the education they
need."

Monday, March 19, 2012

Paul Karrer,
Ten years of No Child Left Behind have left an educational wasteland, a privatized public school system, a further gap between the haves and the have-nots. A demoralized teaching force. And a new rule in the land. Students can't fail, only teachers can.

But all educators can do is teach to the test. They have to. Just ask your children what they do at school all day — test prep.

How can it be that soon, nearly 90 percent of California schools will be considered failing? Answer — they aren't. But the measure for failure is so flawed, even the neo-cons who once touted it now turn their backs on NCLB.

In Monterey County, we have one of the highest murder rates in California. We have an obscene level of child poverty. Unemployment is off the charts. Livable-wage jobs are decreasing. An economic recovery might be on the horizon, but it will be a jobless recovery. Deficits and the fear of underfunded budgets throw terror into educational boards, which then increase class sizes, reduce class offerings and impose furlough days.

Yet teachers are expected to overcome these "challenges" and pretend they have no impact on test outcomes.

Many states are forcing furlough days on teachers. Furlough days are school closure days, but the all-important state testing still takes place with fewer actual learning days. The demands are the same: an impossible requirement of 100 percent proficiency. Schools labor under the eyes of state and federal watch groups while parasitic consultants herd teachers like sheep dogs.

Friday, March 16, 2012

California
public schools are in crisis- and they are getting worse. This is a direct
result of massive budget cuts imposed by the legislature and the governor in
the last four years. Total per
pupil expenditure is down by over $1,000 per student. The result- massive class
size increases. Your students are
in often classes too large for learning. Supplementary services such as tutoring and art classes have
been eliminated. Over 14,000
teachers have been dismissed, and thousands more face lay offs this fall.

California
schools are now 47th. in the nation in per pupil expenditure and 49th
in class size. Our low achievement
scores on national tests reflect this severe underfunding.

Of
course the economic crisis of 2007 to the present made matters worse. The state took in some $30 billion less
in taxes and thus had less to send to the schools. School budgets have been cut by some $10 billion. K-12 education receives about 40% of the
California budget. Thus any
decline in the state budget leads directly to cuts in school services.

The
question for the corporate agenda, such as the Chamber of Commerce is can the
economy prosper with a poorly educated work force. California grew and prospered from 1970- 1994 based upon a
well educated work force. Then, in
the 1994-2008 period over $10 billion of tax cuts were passed – making the
current crisis much worse.
California suffers from a decade of disinvestment. Today, instead of following the education approach,
conservative anti tax forces have imposed an Mississippi approach on
California.

Wednesday, March 14, 2012

So go ahead: Have a Guinness, wear a bit of
green, and put on the Chieftains. But let's honor the Irish with our curiosity.
Let's make sure that our schools show some respect, by studying the social
forces that starved and uprooted over a million Irish -- and that are starving
and uprooting people today.

"Wear green on St. Patrick's Day or get
pinched." That pretty much sums up the Irish American
"curriculum" that I learned when I was in school. Yes, I recall a nod
to the so-called Potato Famine, but it was mentioned only in passing.

Sadly, today's high school textbooks continue to
largely ignore the famine, despite the fact that it was responsible for
unimaginable suffering and the deaths of more than a million Irish peasants,
and that it triggered the greatest wave of Irish immigration in U.S. history.
Nor do textbooks make any attempt to help students link famines past and
present.

Yet there is no shortage of material that can
bring these dramatic events to life in the classroom. In my own high school
social studies classes, I begin with Sinead O'Connor's haunting rendition of
"Skibbereen," which includes the verse:

Civil Rights Data CollectionMinority students across the country face harsher discipline, have less access to rigorous coursework, and are more often taught by lower-paid and less-experienced teachers, according to new data from the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights (OCR).

A national survey of more than 72,000 schools serving 85 percent of the nation’s students illuminates gaping discrepancies among student groups related to college and career readiness, discipline, school finance, student retention, and teacher quality.

The key findings include the following:

Black students, particularly boys, are far more likely to be suspended or expelled from school than their peers. Black students represent 18 percent of the students in the survey sample, but constitute 35 percent of the students suspended once, 46 percent of those suspended multiple times, and 39 percent of those expelled.

Sixty-five percent of high-minority high schools offer Algebra II, compared to 82 percent of high schools with the lowest black and Hispanic enrollment. Similarly, only 29 percent of high-minority high schools offer Calculus, compared to 55 percent of low-minority schools.

Although black and Hispanic students make up 44 percent of the student population in districts offering gifted and talented programs, they represent only 26 percent of the students enrolled in those programs.

Black students represent 16 percent of middle school students, but 42 percent of students in those grades who are held back a year.

Teachers in high-minority schools are paid on average $2,251 less per year than their colleagues teaching in low-minority schools in the same district.

Monday, March 12, 2012

The
Chicago Teachers Union (CTU) has produced a remarkable document describing a vision for
schooling that is truly equitable and high-quality. The plan addresses,
head-on, the historic inequality in education and refuses to compromise on
quality.

The Chicago Teachers Union argues for proven
educational reforms to dramatically improve education of more than 400,000
students in a district of 675 schools. These reforms are desperately needed and
can head Chicago towards the world-class educational system its students
deserve.

The following are essential:

1.Recognize That Class Size Matters. Drastically
reduce class size. We currently have one of the largest class sizes in the
state. This greatly inhibits the ability of our students to learn and thrive.

2.Educate The Whole Child. Invest to ensure that
all schools have recess and physical education equipment, healthy food
offerings, and classes in art, theater, dance, and music in every school. Offer
world languages and a variety of subject choices. Provide every school with a
library and assign the commensurate number of librarians to staff them.

3.Create More Robust Wrap-around Services. The
Chicago Public Schools system (CPS) is far behind recommended staffing levels
suggested by national professional associations. The number of school
counselors, nurses, social workers, and psychologists must increase
dramatically to serve Chicago’s population of low-income students.
Additionally, students who cannot afford transportation costs need free fares.

Could it be because two decades of reform-driven emphasis on rote learning of the “basics” in math and reading have driven out not only what E.D. Hirsh called cultural literacy but any preparation for the problem solving, the analytical skills, the critical thinking and the creativity that advanced skills require? Have we reformed ourselves into marginal incompetence?Peter Schragg.

Wednesday, March 07, 2012

I teach English at Montgomery High School in Santa Rosa, California. I love my school, my amazing colleagues, and the kids who enter my classroom each year. But I hate what is happening to public education.

From the national to the local level, our public schools are under attack, and that means our students are under attack. This attack takes more than one form. The cuts to vital education services are horrifying enough, but they’re only half the picture. The other half is the violation of our public trust by private interests.

It’s not a pretty sight, but we must look squarely at the vultures of privatization that prey on the damage to our schools, from New York to New Orleans to Wisconsin to California. Diane Ravitch, former Assistant Secretary of Education in the first Bush administration, refers to the three big education funders, Bill Gates, Eli Broad and the Walton Family, as the Billionaire Boys Club in her excellent book The Death and Life of the Great American School System. Ravitch has come a long way since her days of working under Bush Sr. I’ve even heard people refer to her as the Noam Chomsky of education, a sure sign of how far to the right our political culture has drifted.

But we were talking about vultures. These corporations are poised to supply the artificial heart of learning to a wounded public school system they fully intend to finish off. But they won’t succeed. No they won’t because our communities are going to fight for our beloved schools, we teachers are going to fight for our students, and our students are going to demand the education they deserve!

Monday, March 05, 2012

More than 6,000 students from Central and Northern
California marched on the California Capitol today to demand full funding of
education,student debt relief and
Tax the Millionaires to pay for it. The impressive demonstration was organized
primarily by student associations of the community colleges, the CSU and U.C.
campuses in the northern half of the state.

Key legislative leaders addressed the crowd and offered
legislation to fund public education- which they can not pass do the
constitutional requirement of a 2/3 vote to raise taxes.

There have been many promises of an occupation of the
capitol, and the police presence was immense.

The first rally of the day was to end at 12:30.Occupy folks have set up a site on the
North Side of the Capitol where they held a general assembly and non violence training.The occupy supporters numbered about 100.

Yet a third event today was the 5:30 PM rally
organized by labor.About 400 trade unionists showed up and
supported the students and workers.See photos.

The several unions supporting and funding the Tax the
Millionaires signature gathering used an effective strategy which we used in
March of 2010 while gathering signatures for the California Democracy Act. They printed several hundred well
done posters saying Tax the Millionaires.They went to the student assembly points where thousands were arriving
without signs and gave the posters away free.In the march at least one of every six marchers was carrying
a Tax the Millionaires sign – an impressive showing.Tax the Millionaires is supported by the California
Federation of Teaches (AFT), the California Nurses (CNA) and most recently
Moveon.In addition to tabling,
some 60 signature gatherers traveled through the crowd to collect signatures of
voters.

Sunday, March 04, 2012

On March 5th, to top off a week of action around student debt, tens of thousands of students and allies will march on the capitals of California and New York, demanding relief from the shackles imposed by being thousands upon thousands of dollars in debt. Can you join students in Sacramento or Albany to show solidarity for higher education and demand relief for those struggling with student debt?

Higher education has historically been a vital component of the American Dream, and yet, for more and more Americans, going to college is out of reach.Student debt has officially topped credit card debt in the US, and total loans outstanding will hit $1 trillion for the first time in history during the next few months.2 This year, campuses in states around the country will face even more cuts -- in Pennsylvania, for example, the Governor has proposed 20% more in cuts to public universities. In California, the cost of attending a University of California has nearly tripled in the last decade.3

Fully fund public education, which is a
public good and is the cornerstone of a democratic society, a vibrant economy,
and the social and intellectual development of every individual.

Fully fund social services, which to a large
part provide a crucial safety net for the most vulnerable members of society
and therefore serve as a measure of society's moral standard.

Thousands of U.S. college students will walk out of class Thursday in a
coordinated day of protest against what may be another year of significant
higher-education budget cuts by state legislatures.

Young Democratic Socialists at UC Davis mobilized to participate in protests
during National Student Debt Week, Feb.27- March 2, across the country. Cornel West joined in the effortAction. http://vimeo.com/37209329